As an automobile manufacturer, Ford has always been recognized as one of the “Big Three.” Despite a seven percent decrease in sales since 2002, the 100-year-old company is still going strong with year-to-date figures of $1.44 million. To maintain this position, Ford and its agency, J. Walter Thompson, turned to the Internet for some of its recent automobile launches.

During the launch of the “All new 2003 Ford Expedition,” for example, the automobile manufacturer aimed to draw attention to the unconventional thinking that goes on behind the making of its automobiles. To accomplish this, the brand and agency had to get creative themselves and approach the campaign from a different angle. They used the online component of the campaign to do this with takeovers of three major portals: MSN.com, AOL.com and Yahoo! They also created an online destination that entertained consumers with a game and thus encouraged interaction with the brand.

Ford Aims Big With Homepage Takeovers of Three Major Portals

Inspired by the success of the 2002 Explorer launch where Yahoo! was roadblocked for an entire day with an ad unit announcing the new automobile, the 2003 Expedition launch was similar but with a twist.

“The idea for the Explorer [campaign] was: Big splash, huge announcement, which we accomplished,” says Kristen Bergmann, Digital Media Director and Senior Partner at J. Walter Thompson. “With Expedition, we had to get more sophisticated because the audience had had so much exposure to homepage takeover since then.”

Instead of taking over an entire site and thereby reaching the same consumers countless number of times, as the Explorer campaign had done, the goal for the Expedition campaign was to tell as many people as possible about the 2003 Expedition -- one time and one time only, says Bergmann.

The homepage takeovers of Yahoo!, MSN.com and the welcome page takeover of AOL.com took place on May 6, 2002.

“We felt that we would reach most of the Internet population if we were to choose these three [portals], and they all happened to be existing partners of ours that we knew could deliver,” Bergmann says.

In addition to these takeovers, banner ads were placed within the portals as well as on other sites such as Edmunds.com and kbb.com, the Kelley Blue Book Website. The online portion of the campaign lasted until May 12.

A Wealth of Creativity

Each portal displayed different creative designed by the sites themselves under the direction of the creative team at J. Walter Thompson.

According to Bergmann, this worked best since each portal knows best how to communicate with its audience and what kind of creative its audience will respond to the most positively. “We wanted them to become involved in the campaign, the creation of the campaign, and the message,” Bergmann says. “It is their homepage. We wanted it to have the look and feel of each of the different sites.”

On Yahoo!, the creative was designed so that descriptions of the features of the Expedition fly faster and faster on the page until the shape of the Ford Expedition is eventually formed. During the second day of the takeover, a light initially showed specific features of the automobile and then displayed the vehicle in full color with the tag line, “The Totally New 2003 Ford Expedition. It has no equal.”

On MSN.com, a Ford Expedition appears on the page, dropping from a 230x30 banner. The silhouetted vehicle then turns on and off its headlights while text appears, “Need an innovative idea? How about 123 of them?” The headlights then blink faster and faster, each time showing an enhanced feature of the vehicle. At the end, the car is revealed in a photo along with the tagline. The ad then minimizes back into the banner.

On AOL.com, in addition to the homepage takeover, the company sponsored the “Five Star Adventure Vacations” destination in the portal’s travel channel. According to Bergmann, this consisted of a banner ad rotation through the section. The travel channel was appropriate since Ford was aiming to position its SUVs and target a specific audience with a travel and adventure mindset, says Bergmann.

An Online and Appealing Destination

The portals, however, were only doorways into the more unconventional, interactive aspect of the campaign’s online portion. Each takeover lured consumers to click on a link to partake in a brainteaser game. The game was designed by Vivendi Universal and lasted from May 3 to the 26th.

The game dovetailed off the print portion of the campaign and was designed to get consumers excited about the product as well as actively involved in thinking about the unconventional design of the SUV, such as the redesigned wheels and independent rear suspension.

In addition to the brainteaser game, the online destination offered consumers a chance to register to win a new 2003 Ford Expedition, request a brochure and visit fordvehicles.com to learn more about the vehicle.

“The goal was to create a highly interactive environment,” says Bergmann. “We figured if there was a destination, we were going to use it for all of its strengths.”

The End Result

The results of the campaign proved that the unconventional thinking had paid off. The online campaign delivered more brochure requests than the other media – broadcast, print and direct – involved in the campaign.

“We didn’t know the campaign would work that well,” says Bergmann. “In terms of all the brochure requests that we had, the majority came from this online piece particularly.”

The campaign also exceeded the agency’s initial estimate of click through to sales. Other hard metrics measured were the number of impressions delivered and the number of people who interacted with the site. These were measured by established systems that Ford and J. Walter Thompson already had in place. Dynamic Logic measured soft metrics, such as brand awareness and purchase consideration.

According to Bergmann, the campaign was unique in that it had a variety of metrics built into each step of the way. “Not only did we have this creative and production and the idea, which is enough, but we were also able to incorporate hard and soft metrics all the way through to actually tracking to sale,” she says.

However, it was by maximizing the strengths of online advertising that these metrics were able to be measured and J. Walter Thompson was able to demonstrate how the campaign was successful in moving people through the purchase tunnel.

“Each medium plays a particular strength in terms of being able to deliver a certain part of the purchase tunnel, but in this case, we were able to demonstrate that the Internet can do all of these things, which is very unique,” says Bergmann.

Now Ford and J. Walter Thompson, partners for 60 years, are gearing up for their next major campaign which will happen in the fall with the launch of the P221, the new F Series. Encouraged by the success of the Expedition launch, Bergmann says online will play a role in this and upcoming campaigns.